By C.M. Friel
What is the relationship between public ownership, private ownership and the environment?
Public ownership itself is no guarantee against corruption, but it makes it much more difficult to misappropriate public property for private profit. Pollution and environmental degradation from publicly owned facilities in Eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union were widespread.
There are some fundamental necessities of life such as air and water, and in developed societies energy supplies and sewerage systems — the provision of which is beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen. Some of these are under threat.
In NSW the power industry is being privatised, in Victoria the first steps have been taken to privatise power stations. Privatisation of water and gas supplies is on the agenda. When the state-owned banks have been sold off, it will be open slather on environmentally unfriendly investments.
The Australian National Line has already been reduced to a rump, stripped of its income-producing arm, its share in Australian Stevedores. Once it has been fully dismantled, it will be open slather on freight rates and on working conditions for seamen on the east coast of Australia. The higher freight rates will flow through to the cost of living of all Australians.
Australian Airlines has already disappeared, and Qantas is earmarked for disposal.
And there is a relentless onslaught on coastal areas, particularly the eastern seaboard of Australia, but also in Darwin, by private developers and, in the NT, by government.
How do developers obtain access to public land? They are aided by corrupt local and state politicians and by real estate agents, tourism operators and the accepted philosophy that development is the way to go. Development creates jobs and improves living standards — every redneck will tell you that.
One wonders why, after all the years of development in Australia, there is such widespread unemployment. Perhaps that theory needs some fine tuning.
It seems fundamental that the land resources of a nation are the property of the people of that nation. Yet we see that not only can they be destroyed with impunity under private ownership, but those responsible are now being rewarded by receiving financial maintenance from the taxpaying public.
An interesting side issue during the recent drought crisis is the federal government's guarantee of repayments by farmers. This bails out the banks, whose profligate lending policies brought many farmers to their present financial plight.
The emphasis placed on overseas trade by the federal government and the opposition led to many farmers borrowing money to expand their holdings and to maximise their crop yields. This same idiotic philosophy of continual growth comes from NT chief minister Marshall Perron and Labor opposition leader Brian Ede almost daily. Paul Ehrlich calls it the perpetual motion theory.
The major contradiction between private ownership of resources and the maintenance of our ecosystems is that the first is driven by the profit motive. If there is no profit, there is no action. Ecological maintenance leads to making economic viability a minor consideration. If it is essential it has to be done, regardless of cost.
Money is power, and those with access to, or control of, large sums control governments and manipulate public opinion through the media. Privatisation of resources weakens the power of governments and strengthens the power of capital.
The obvious allies of the green movement in the struggle against privatisation are trade unions and rank and file ALP members. Support from the general public is more likely to come from activities such as street campaigns, than from propaganda campaigns.
Who are the enemies in the struggle?
They are the big business beneficiaries of privatisation, the coalition, the parliamentary ALP and most of the ACTU leadership. The struggle against privatisation should be viewed as an essential part of the struggle against environmental degradation, because, if economic viability is the only criterion for development or remedial action, we lose. [C.M. Friel is acting secretary of the Northern Territory Greens.]